Kanazawa: Museum and Garden

Forecast for lots of rain today, luckily our AIRBNB has lots of umbrellas, plus we have the 2 free umbrellas that we have on loan from the train station. Who knew it rains here 70% of the time, not us when we picked here to visit lol.

We were to meet Heather this morning at 21 Century Museum of Contemporary Art, about 18 minute walk from our place. We left a bit early for pictures and just looking around. After about 20 minutes we were still 18 minutes from the museum, oops we started off in the wrong direction, so unlike us lol. One of the pictures we had seen a lot of was the Swimming Pool Exhibit, unfortunately sold out for the day, and this was at 10AM. It was quite busy in the museum, I think lots of people looking for something indoors to do with the forecast, but so far not much rain. We spent about an hour in the museum, you need to buy separate tickets for different exhibits and one was enough, even though the old man over 65 did not need to pay anything to enter again.

Next off we head to Kenroku-en garden, one of the top 3 gardens in Japan. We have a tea ceremony booked here for 2 this afternoon so we have a couple of hours to explore and find a little something to eat. This garden is absolutely beautiful. I think maybe the best we have seen so far. It was not very busy, and the largest we have been in so far. A few of the peach trees were in bloom and a couple of cherry trees, but it is further behind here than Hiroshima as it is quite further North and everything will bloom a little later. Most impressive was how the large trees are being supported by poles, very interesting. We have seen this before in our travels, but never this many. We find a little shop that has yaki-dango and they have one especially for spring time so I get that one, Andre gets tuna. I have had these twice now, twice is enough for me.

We spend more time just wandering the grounds and then off to our tea ceremony. It was led by a girl from France, and a girl from Japan. They made us matcha tea and then we each made ourselves a cup. Lots of rituals, how to hold the cup, how many times you can sip from it, how to slurp on the last sip, how to wash everything before and after. We also had some very pretty pastries to go with it, they are quite sweet and you eat them before the tea to balance out the tea taste.

After tea we split up and head back to our apartment for a break. On the way home it pours buckets, umbrellas and rain jackets helped but we still got pretty wet. My boots may not be dry by the time we leave in 2 days.

Decide to go visit the Higashi Chaya District - one of the geisha districts in Kanazawa. Not too much going on while we were there, we were hoping to find somewhere to eat. We will need to go back in the daylight to explore this area too.

Looked at a few places and couldn't find something interesting to eat so just picked up some things at the grocery store and headed home. An early night after another full day.

Steps 23,235 / 14.75 kms

Near our apartment on a 1 way street intersection. Maybe Google knows what it is

Rain in the forecast, came across this statue in the park, little did we know how much we needed our umbrellas later

Little park next to the castle park

Looks like the fish has 2 mouth where the water went away from his body when he came out begging for food

21 Century Museum of Contemporary Art

21 Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Swimming Pool Exhibit. We couldn't get tickets to this exhibit, but we could view from above

2 Japanese kids trying to figure out how people can walk under water

Good to be inside

outside the museum, they have a few displays

the blossoms had a shower today

3 colours makes many colours when mixed

 

Ishirua shrine

first time we saw purple ones

At the Kenroku-en garden

Kenroku-en garden, They have over 20 kinds of plum trees and many cherry trees. This one has lost some of it blossoms. 

Statue of Yamato Takeru

Lots of trees have pole supporting them

elevated view

Famous lantern

small lunch at the park

Japanese yaki-dango, Wendy bean paste, Andre Bonito flakes

Many beautiful paths

Pond with waterfall

The girls enjoying the blossoms. 

Tea house that you could have tea

large tree being supported

At our Matcha tea ceremony 

We got a small sweet to have before being served the Matcha tea from our host.

We then made matcha tea ourselves

At the Castle park

At the entrance

Beautiful large fortified doors

One of the large storehouse. The castle is being rebuild and should be ready in 8 years

Castle park

Higashi Chaya District - one of the geisha districts in Kanazawa. In light rain

Bridge over Asano river

Kazuemachi Chaya District from the bridge

 

Kanazawa

Today we moved on from Hiroshima to Kanazawa. This involved 3 trains, and our most expensive day yet of travel, I think our longest travel day too.

We had purchased the tickets from a “live” person earlier in the week when we got to Hiroshima. Didn't want to try the ticket booth as we knew it would be confusing. Glad we did this as she gave us 3 tickets that we had to insert all 3 each time into the machine before and after boarding the train. By the end of the day the machines had taken all of tickets away from us. Our last train ride we had to run to make the connection, it was so busy in the station 8 minutes did not give us much time to transfer. But we made it. 5 hours of trains and we are now in Kanazawa and have one more Shinkansen train under our belt.

Some major confusion at the train station in Kanazawa as we were trying to book a bus to Takayama our next stop and it is all sold out for April 2. I had read to prebook, no idea we needed to do it this early. So, back to the train station from the bus terminal and there are issues along the line to Takayama. I remembered I had seen a tour that goes from Kanazawa to Takayama in my research, so we got booked on that. I booked through getyourguide, so I'm guessing this reseller books up spots on the busses and then it is sold out. A little frustrating, but now we have a little tour to an area we were going to visit later in the week anyway, now we will just do it on our way to Takayama.

That drama over and we are off to our AIRBNB. We have a little AIRBNB booked here, but it is like a major suite in size after our tiny hotel rooms we have been staying in. This is only the 2^nd of 3 AIRBNB we have this trip. The problem with these here is it is very strict on check in times, which has always been 3pm. So what do you do with your luggage? In a hotel they have always had luggage checks so it hasn't been any problem. Anyway it all worked out because we only arrived here after 3, but we do need to deal with our luggage when we leave as it is well past 10 that we catch our bus, check out has always been 10AM

Grabbed a pork steam bun on the walk to our airbnb, not sure if that was lunch or supper. Walked through the market that we know we will be going back to visit again, most things are closing up now at 4PM.

After we got settled in the apartment we ventured out to explore the city a little. Visited a couple of shrines that we just came across. Met up with Heather around the castle area, then walked to the Samurai region of Kanazawa. All of these need to be visited again in the daylight. A long travel day and we call it a night early. Picked up some things at a grocery store tomorrow for breakfast and looked at the weather for tomorrow, yuck. Luckily I saw at tourist information at the train station that you can just borrow umbrellas, so we each now have an umbrella as well. Hotels have always had umbrellas for us, we weren't sure about our AIRBNB.

Steps 18,920 / 11.8kms

Street Car to the train station

We needed 3 tickets to travel today. Interesting that you have to feed the 3 tickets into the machine together, every time they come out the other side one of the tickets has been taken. Glad we purchased the tickets from an information desk so she could tell us how this all worked

Bento Boxes for sale outside the train. You are not allowed to eat on most trains, but these fast trains it is OK

Frozen Creme Brule before the train ride, yummy

Always fun to try to read the signs to make sure you are getting on the correct train, and going the right direction. They do eventually switch to English, but it doesn't last long

Our first train

Stadium and costco, no idea that they had a costco here until we were leaving by train and saw it 

Our first transit at Kyoto train station, tons of track

along the way

This massive golden statue represents Kannon, the Buddhist Goddess of Compassion, 73 meters tall. From the train in Kaga Japan

Shrine near the train station in Kanazawa

I hope their hotel room is bigger than the one we just had.

Real estate office sign

At the market but it was closing

Steamed pork bun

Old home on our street

Outside the castle

castle entrance but it's closing

Street across from the castle

many statues in a small park

Ozaki Shrine

First time we have seen stained glass in a shrine, Oyama shrine

Samurai region of Katayama. Narrow cobblestone streets with old wooden homes. We will need to revisit in the daylight

Torii Gates from Ishiura Shrine